Export revenues of the information technology and business process management grew 10.6 percent in 2021 to $29.49 billion from $26.6 billion in 2020 as many companies adapted to remote working set-up, an industry group said Wednesday.
“This double-digit growth validates what we had projected—that 2021 performance was beyond recovery. It marks resurgence for the Philippine IT-BPM sector,” said IT and Business Process Association of the Philippines president and chief executive Jack Madrid.
The group said the number of full-time employees in the sector also increased 9.1 percent last year to 1.44 million from 1.32 million in 2020.
“Preserving jobs, driving investments, stimulating countryside development and creating demand for real estate—these are the unequivocal contributions of the industry to nation-building,” Madrid said.
The group said the 2021 figures did not only exceed the forecasted growth for the year, but also eclipsed the recalibrated 2022 targets of 1.43 million employees and $29.1-billion revenues ahead of schedule.
IBPAP attributed the upsurge to the pent-up demand from global customers, higher confidence in work-from-home setups in contact centers and business process services and growth in emerging sub-segments like e-commerce, financial technology, healthcare and technology.
More in global business services are also incorporating offshoring and outsourcing into their strategic initiatives to improve efficiencies and optimize costs in multiple geographies, it said.
“This will spill over into 2022 and continue to boost demand for IT-BPM services across the world. We should not miss out on this opportunity to capture a bigger slice of the global market,” Madrid said.
He said several factors would define the sustained growth of the sector, while next-generation business models and assets, talent and skills shortage and competitive pricing models would spur further reliance on offshoring and outsourcing.
The group said the traditional players’ adoption of digital technology would add to key drivers of growth in 2022.
It said that to improve global competitiveness, supply chain resilience would be critical amid the intensifying talent war, exacerbated by higher attrition rates and growing requirements for emerging and niche skills.
The integration of hybrid work models in business strategies will also become more prevalent, the group said.
Globally, 70 percent of IT-BPM enterprises believe that they will be implementing hybrid work arrangements. Locally, 80 percent of Filipino IT-BPM employees expressed preference for a hybrid work model over returning fully onsite.
Madrid said the future of the Philippine IT-BPM sector would be dependent on the country’s ability to take advantage of emerging trends and circumvent mounting threats on a global and local scale.